In contrast, Hillary Clinton is hardly the icon in the Valley and its
San Francisco annex as are both her husband and President Obama.But
her “technocratic liberalism,” albeit hard to pin down, and close ties
to the financial oligarchs seems more congenial than the grass-roots
populism identified with Bernie Sanders, her chief rival for the
Democratic presidential nomination.

“They don’t like Sanders at all,” notes researcher Greg Ferenstein,
who has been polling Internet company founders for an upcoming book.
Sanders’ emphasis on income redistribution and protecting union
privileges and pensions is hardly popular among the tech elite. “He’s an
egalitarian liberal,” Ferenstein explains, “These people are tech
liberals. Equality is a nonissue in Silicon Valley.”

This conflict is most obvious in the assault on ride-booking firms,
like Uber, by progressives like Sanders, as well as New York City Mayor
Bill de Blasio. This battle reveals a deepening split between the
party’s mass base, including conventional taxi companies and operators,
and its increasingly influential tech business allies. Some conservatives, such as pollster Scott Rasmussen, see Republican
backing for Uber as an opening for the GOP. Yet Ferenstein’s poll of
Internet founders reveals that barely 3 percent say they are
Republicans; 18 percent are libertarian, while nearly half are
Democrats. Republican operatives peg the tech donors to be 9-1 in favor
of Democrats. Talk about unrequited love!Overall, the hotbeds of the tech and information economies, including
media, have become the financial bedrock of the Democratic Party. The
10 leading counties for Democratic fundraising in 2012 included, for the
first time, Santa Clara, as well as San Francisco, Los Angeles and New
York. Given their domination of the ranks of wealthy people under age
40, one can expect that this power will only increase in the years
ahead.

Fundamentally, Silicon Valley worships at the altar of “disruption,”
seeking ways to create at least the prospect of megaprofits by doing
things differently. Change is celebrated by those who benefit the most
from it. But groups – from cab drivers to Hollywood tradespeople, even
hotel workers – whose livelihoods are threatened by the disruptions of
the “share” economy, may not be so sanguine.

Perhaps the biggest area of disagreement between the oligarchy and
the populists is the role of labor unions. Simply put, the oligarchs
are, at best, indifferent, if not hostile, to union influence. After
all, tech has blossomed virtually without organized labor, which remains
a bulwark of Democratic operations. Silicon Valley-backed attempts to
reform schools, or weaken pensions for government workers, can expect
ferocious opposition from the unions.

Another potential dividing line can be seen on immigration, where
left-leaning groups like the Economic Policy Institute have campaigned
against attempts by establishment Democrats and Republicans alike to
expand the H1B and other “guest worker” visa programs. In a moment of
politically incorrect candor, Sen. Sanders suggested that the kind of
“open borders” policy advocated by Silicon Valley, libertarians and
immigration activists would result in “substantially lower wages” for
working-class Americans.Right now, the populists have numbers on their side, as well as much
of the media. The recent New York Times expose on Amazon’s brutal
management practices reveals a deep discord between the media
mouthpieces of the political Left and their usual capitalist heroes from
the information economy.

The biggest challenge for the tech oligarchs is that their rise has
come as class divisions have widened, and inequality has grown. The
benefits to society of the current technology wave – outside of being
able to more conveniently waste time on your phone – whether in terms of
creating jobs (outside of the Bay Area) or boosting productivity,appear largely limited........................ Yet given what many find the unattractive nature of the Republican alternative, one can expect the oligarchs to seek out a modus vivendi
with the populists. They could exchange a regime of higher taxes and
regulation for ever-expanding crony capitalist opportunities and
political protection. As the hegemons of today, Facebook and Google, not
to mention Apple and Amazon, have an intense interest in protecting
themselves, for example, from antitrust legislation. History is pretty
clear: Heroic entrepreneurs of one decade often turn into the insider
capitalists of the next.

Tech people certainly have no objection to joining the ranks of crony
capitalists, notably when cloaked in environmentally green garb. The
solar energy and electric car empire of Elon Musk has been made possible
by subsidies; unlike most manufacturing industries, he has a
well-developed interest in the most Draconian energy legislation. Other
tech figures, including Doerr, Khosla and top executives at Google, have
benefited from government-subsidized renewable-energy schemes............... These ventures produce very expensive energy – an economic disaster
for most Californians – but have been bolstered by alliances with
unions, which seek to monopolize construction within green industries.
Rather than seek at least some alliance with the Right, it seems more
likely that the oligarchs will be forced to make some concessions to the
populist Left, including to women and minorities, groups unrepresented
in the tech industry.................... A possible model for such an alliance can be seen in the coupling of
San Francisco hedge-fund billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer and his
Latino sidekick, the now-well-funded climate-change acolyte state
Senate President pro Tem Kevin de León of Los Angeles, by such things as
using cap-and-trade funds to fund a relatively small number of
affordable houses.With the industrial economy hampered by regulation,
the old blue-collar economy is dying off. This means the oligarchs may
need only to support a few symbolic measures to benefit those who no
longer have a productive place in the economy................... Steyer even has plans in 2018 to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown, who he
thinks may not have been sufficiently Draconian in his campaign against
climate change. Steyer will probably be able to count on the support of
de Leónand other Latino politicians whom Steyer finances.

Of course, Bernie Sanders may yet have his moment, but the America he
represents, that of sure things and widespread equality, will fade with
him. The economic future likely belongs not to the populists but to the
oligarchs and those in politics who choose to tap their money and
influence to gain power. Welcome to the 21st century."

"Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman
University in Orange and the executive director of the Houston-based
Center for Opportunity Urbanism (www.opportunityurbanism.org). His most recent book is “The New Class Conflict” (Telos Publishing: 2014)." via Free Rep.